


spring.

by absolut_svensk



Series: from death to birth. [1]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolut_svensk/pseuds/absolut_svensk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you ever think about things you don't want to remember?</p>
            </blockquote>





	spring.

**Author's Note:**

> Companion music to this is Iron & Wine's "Waiting for a Superman."

_Is it getting heavy?_

_Well, I thought it was already as heavy as can be_

 

_Tell everybody waiting for Superman_

_That they should try to hold on the best they can._

 

** Tuesday, 1:30 A.M.  **

** March, 1999. **

** Hollywood, Florida.**

Florida, Skwisgaar has decided, has two seasons, Hot and Hotter. Despite Nathan’s constant ‘reassurances’--that it doesn’t get much worse than this, so shut up, and that they’ll definitely have money for proper A/C by next month, tops--he’s not convinced. At this rate, he figures, he’ll slowly melt to death, and by the time the air conditioning’s back on, it won’t matter, because any number of the horrid swamp creatures will have devoured his body and the sun will have bleached his bones. Or, better yet, since this is Florida and the air on a good day is about ninety-nine percent water, he’ll become like one of those disgusting corpses of a person who’s died in the bath, his skin sloughing off in sheets, belly bloated and filled with gas, his guts liquefying and bubbling and stinking in the non-air-conditioned hell of Nathan’s four-hundred square-foot apartment.

(Brutal.) 

He tosses and turns for about two hours after going to bed, and it’s not until the middle of the night that he finally gets up, tendrils of wavy blonde hair stuck to his back, little rivulets of sweat pouring down his forehead and torso. The kitchen, at least, is marginally cooler, and there’s cheap beer in the fridge, which will tide him over--for now--so he makes his way there as quietly as possible, stepping gingerly around Murderface’s cot and the sleeping bag the New Kid’s occupying in the corner of the room. He’s actually jealous of how peacefully Pickles is snoozing away on the couch, and--judging by the ear-splitting snores coming from the only bedroom--Nathan’s sleeping like a baby as well.

The kitchen’s furnishings are sparse, but it’s the best they can do on their meager ‘salary,’ if one could even call what they earn from playing gigs a ‘salary’ in the first place. It’s a pittance, really, but the water and electricity are on--at least most of the time--and there’s rotgut beer and ramen. Sometimes there’re even drugs, though it’s usually Pickles who procures them and Skwisgaar doesn’t have the heart--or the stomach--to ask about how the drummer comes across such good stuff.

He helps himself to a Marlboro menthol, sinking limply into one of the metal folding chairs and basking in the moonlight, half his torso draped across the card table that’s passing as their dinner table for now. The metal, at least, is cool, and it offers his derriere--as well as other, more sensitive, parts of his anatomy--a respite from the heat, and for that, he’s immensely grateful. A couple sips of Keystone later, and he’s feeling back to some semblance of normal. In an attempt to tire himself out enough to fall back asleep, he sits back and begins to lazily count the ants trooping in a little line up and down the wall, and for some reason he remembers Murderface’s tirade about pheromones yesterday. 

He’s just gotten to two hundred, amazing even himself when he manages to count that high _på engelska_ , when he hears a faint scurrying in the doorway. Here in this miserable cesspool that is Florida in the springtime, that could mean any number of things, including but not limited to some terrible swamp devil having found its way into the woefully un-weatherstripped apartment.

Except it’s not an animal. Gradually, the shadow begins to take shape, and in the moonlight, Skwisgaar can make out Toki’s frame. He looks wide-eyed and scared, which is typical fare for him, except this time his hands are cupped and he’s holding them out at Skwisgaar like he’s suddenly forgotten what to do with them. 

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘I found it,’ Toki bleats in a feeble whisper, shuffling over to Skwisgaar’s side and uncupping his hands. In them is the largest, most foul-looking cockroach Skwisgaar has ever seen, and he has to struggle not to retch when Toki thrusts it in his face again.

‘Why would you touch that thing?’

‘Because I didn’t know what else to do with it! It was crawling on my face!’

‘Get rid of it!’ Skwisgaar orders in a harsh whisper, and Toki, visibly traumatized, throws the horrid thing onto the floor. In a flash, it’s scuttled under the cupboard.

Skwisgaar can only sigh. ‘Wash your hands. Those things will make you sick.’

Toki shuffles over to the sink and turns on the tap, scrubbing his hands thoroughly, but long after the water cuts off, he remains in the kitchen, leaning awkwardly against the formica countertop.

‘Go to bed, Toki. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. You need your rest.’

‘You’re not in bed, either,’ Toki protests, and Skwisgaar reluctantly admits--at least internally--that the kid is right.

‘I can’t sleep in the heat,’ he retorts quickly, lighting a second cigarette from the cherry of the first one. 

Toki coughs and edges closer, waving the cloud of smoke out of his face; it’s not long before he’s pulled up a chair and is sitting at the table, too. ‘Are you sick?’ 

‘I’m Swedish,’ Skwisgaar snaps, and it comes out a little more cruelly than he would’ve liked. Toki doesn’t seem to notice, though; in fact, he begins to giggle. Skwisgaar gives him a scrutinizing look, saying nothing.

The kid’s never laughed before, now that he thinks about it. He hardly ever talks, even; he keeps mostly to himself and does everything they tell him to. Actually, he’s perpetually kow-towing to them, like he’s afraid he’ll have his skull bashed in if he doesn’t, and Skwisgaar hates himself a little for making a mental comparison between Toki and a stupid dog that’s been kicked one time too many but keeps coming back for more.

It’s pathetic.

And it makes a part of him feel somewhere between uncomfortable and sad--and he hates that most of all.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I had a bad dream.’ Toki folds his arms across his chest and stares pointedly out of the window. ‘It’s too hot. It gives me night-scares.’

‘That makes no sense at all.’ Skwisgaar almost feels bad for saying it when he sees the helpless look Toki gives him. ‘You soaked through your shirt.’

‘I know.’

‘So change it, then.’

‘It’s all I have.’ Toki shuffles his feet awkwardly, presses his cheek against the glass. Even that’s not cool; it offers no respite from the muggy air inside the apartment. 

Skwisgaar sighs irritatedly, even though his stomach’s started aching with something akin to... pity. He was never rich, but he’s never known utter destitution like what this kid, by all accounts, seems to have come from. ‘Give it here, then,’ he says as gruffly as he can, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Toki looks a little shocked, then reluctantly tugs the shirt off. He doesn’t make eye contact when he hands it over, doesn’t notice when Skwisgaar drapes it over the back of his own chair--in fact, he’s practically curled up into a little ball in his chair instead; he’s drawn his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them. Even in the faint moonlight, Skwisgaar can see his ribs poking through his skin.

The kid’s hardly a day past seventeen, all sharp lines and jutting angles, but he’s got good bones. When he fills out a little, he’ll be handsome--and Skwisgaar feels more than a little predatory for thinking that.

(A quick drag off his cigarette dispels those thoughts.)

‘Well? What are you waiting for? Go back to bed, then. It’ll dry overnight. I’ll wash it when I’ve got money for the laundromat. When I take my own shit.’ He waves his hand dismissively at Toki, trying to shoo him as if he were a housefly. ‘Go on. Get some rest.’

‘I can’t sleep,’ Toki repeats, this time more desperately. ‘Can I stay here with you?’

Skwisgaar doesn’t so much relent as he does just fail to acknowledge the question completely, now turning his attention to the goings-on outside the window, to the palmettos bobbing lazily in the breeze. God, only this place could have wind that’s not even cool. What a fucking cesspool. 

The two of them are silent for a very long while, during which Skwisgaar smokes two more cigarettes, finishes his beer, and starts on a second. He’s almost ready to go to sleep himself when Toki suddenly begins to speak. 

‘Do you ever think about things you don’t want to remember?’ 

Skwisgaar sighs, gives the kid a sidewise look. Toki’s eyes are wide, genuine, and Skwisgaar can see that he’s white-knuckled from holding his knees against his chest so tightly. ‘I think everyone does,’ he finally replies off-handedly, ‘at one point or another, at least.’

‘How do you... not do that?’

‘I think about things I like.’ God, he hopes the kid’s not going to try to use him as a shrink--or even as a sounding board. Once upon a time, Skwisgaar used to be a warm and genuine person, but life has made him hard, and it shows in the cynical light in his eyes, his perpetual sneer, the almost defiant set of his jaw. 

‘Like what?’

‘The guitar?’ His voice ticks up a little, irritated. ‘Getting my dick sucked? Doing drugs?’

‘Oh.’ Toki’s tone is unreadable, and it makes Skwisgaar’s stomach do something mightily weird, which he immediately blames on the beer.

Another pregnant pause ensues. Toki shifts awkwardly, his cheek resting against one of his kneecaps, his eyes heavy-lidded, completely oblivious to how Skwisgaar idly watches him. 

Finally, he breaks the silence, getting up slowly, stiffly.

(Fuck, he’s thin.)

‘Thanks for listening to me, Skwis.’

‘Don’t call me that. Go to bed.’ He doesn’t sound as acrid as he’d intended--and, for once, he’s not too upset about it. His stomach’s still doing that weird thing. He puts his cigarette out. 

Toki, he decides, walks funnily, almost like it hurts him to move. And, for some odd reason, he faces Skwisgaar almost the entire way out of the kitchen, not turning around until he’s in the kitchen doorway once more.

Skwisgaar’s about to tell him that he’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal when he sees the scars, and at first he thinks he might be making things up out of exhaustion, that it might just be his eyes playing tricks on him, or a funny angle of the light. But--no: even as Toki’s form recedes back into the living room, he can see their harsh outlines, how they angle across his back, jagged and horrid and _huge_ , a patchwork of agony. It’s absolutely brutal, and not in a good, _Faces of Death_ sort of way. It’s sick, disgusting.

The words promptly die in his throat.

(Usually, Skwisgaar doesn’t dream. But that night, he dreams of cockroaches and prison breaks and drowning on dry land and when he wakes in the early morning, his mouth dry, head pounding, heart racing, he can’t make heads or tails of any of it.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one of a (planned) four-part series entitled 'from death to birth.' I got the idea for the title from a Pagoda song that shares it, which is, in essence, about finding oneself.
> 
> Suffice it to say, there will be a lot of self-discovery (I hope) on this journey.
> 
> I made the choice to drop Skwisgaar and Toki's accents in this part because I assume they would be more comfortable speaking in their mother tongues with each other--and I think maybe there's a little bit more emotional impact when their speech is easier to understand. ;u;
> 
> For reference, I think Toki was born in 1982 and Skwisgaar in 1975 (making them 17 and 24 at the time of this story, respectively), and that Dethklok started to make it big between 1999-2000.


End file.
